Road Trip
by xmenfan33
Summary: Three years after Rogue and Gambit walked out of the mansion, and away from the X-men, Julian and Jamie go on a self proclaimed 'epic journey' to find them and ask for their help. Part of the Babysitting series
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own X-men.

A/N: Book 13 of The Babysitting series

Chapter One

The Message

A shaky video begins with the shadowy face. "If you are seeing this, I'm dead...or captured...or I accidentally hit send. In fact, for the sake of argument, just assume I'm still alive, and I hit send on accident. In fact, I may decide to send this intentionally, because really, what good is a cry for help, after the fact? So anyway, just assume I meant to send this to you but I am currently still alive and ignore my first sentence."

A few seconds of black footage is seen before the face once more appears, this time slightly easier to see. "Okay, let me start again, I'll probably edit out the first part. Maybe, if I remember and have time, and live through this." A muffled voice can be heard just off camera, before the speaker replied. "Yeah I know I'm rambling! I do that when I'm scared okay Julian! Just get off my case... Anyway. My name is James Maddox, Jamie to my friends. If I sent this video it means, we are in bigger trouble than we realized and are in need of help. By we I mean myself and my friend, Julian Keller. You see we may have stumbled upon something accidentally while on an unauthorized mission and- Yeah I know I'm getting to the point! Darn it Julian, now I have to start over!"

"Hello. My name is James 'Jamie' Maddox. I and my friend, Julian 'The Idiot' Keller need help, which is why I am sending you this message. The world needs help not just us, because if we don't stop them, they are going to win...and really this is all Julian's fault. This whole thing was his idea and really I have no idea how I always end up going along with him, because he isn't very nice to me sometimes and-" The camera shook, as the two boys seemed to fight over it, before once more going dark.

A bedraggled and haggard boy reappeared on the screen. "Okay, trying again. Hello, I'm Jamie and if you are seeing this We are in deep sh-"

The boy reappeared looking in far better condition, and with a shaking breath started again. "My name is Jamie. I'm sending this message to let the world know, the world is in danger. In fact it's more than just 'in danger' it's always freakin in danger, trust me. I know. This is different though. Here let me start at the beginning. Well after the dude with the metal helmet, that's somehow related to a couple of my teachers but they don't seem to like him, even though he seems to be trying really hard to be nice, well anyway after he and the drunk guy that used to be in charge were kidnapped? Killed? I'm not sure, I've never really paid attention in briefings, along with a bunch of others, we had this epic battle thingy that ended up on tv with this like really old mummy mutant thing...I think I was there, but I may not have been, after all I've heard the story so many times, anyway, so after all that stuff the story really began, because that's when I found Kaitlyn-"

A massive crash, sounds of a struggle, and a high-pitched scream occur as the camera falls over, then cuts off. A few seconds of black follow, then a new face appears. "Hello, my name is Julian Keller, and I am sending this message to let the world know that we are all going to die. Or it may just seem like it because of those sixteen lattes and driving for three days straight. Either way, we are in trouble. Let me start at the beginning though. First, just to get it out of the way. Logan was right. As crazy as that seems, he was right. It all began three weeks ago, when my friend and travel associate Jamie and I went in search of our former teacher, Remy LeBeau, to get advice on a Logan prob-"

The video froze as Sinister stood and yelled. "DEBBIE! Fetch my good cape, my son is in trouble somehow. DEBBIE!"

"I'm right here, sir." said the woman who sat next to him. To most of the world, her name was Chloe. To the man sitting next to her, she was Debbie, just as the five women who had this post before her. It didn't seem to matter to him that she was shorter, darker, and younger than his last assistant, or the one before that, he would forget she had only worked for him for the last three months almost daily. "Sir, do you think you should watch the rest of the video to find out how he's in danger?"

"I don't tell you how to make the coffee, don't tell me how to raise my son!" Sinister said as he walked from the room, before poking his head back through the door. "By the way, the coffee's a little weak, you may want to add more beans."

Debbie/Chloe picked up a notebook and reached to hit play as the sound of crashing beakers came from the other room. "Debbie, someone attacked my lab again! Help me!"

These boys seemed to actually need help, and her boss was already distracted. After a moment of indecision, she hit forward before she went to clean up the latest mess.

Logan had just sat down to his morning coffee and reports when his computer 'dinged' announcing a new message. He took a sip of his drink, as he opened the message. A few minutes later he hit the emergency alarm on his way to the War Room.

Seconds later he was joined by the rest of his team as he pulled up his email on the main computer. Though everyone was dressed professionally, and ready for the day, no one looked awake. Wanda and John both needed to brush their hair, Jean looked like her younger child decided to bathe her in oatmeal rather than eat it, Kitty and Piotr, who had been overseeing breakfast, looked harassed and worn out.

"I received this message from an anonymous source just minutes ago and-" Logan began without bothering to wait for everyone to sit down, as the last few walked into the room.

"Logan! What did I say about opening anonymous messages? Are you trying to kill your computer again?" Said Kitty.

"That only happened once." Logan said

"It happened three times, this week."

"Never mind, that's not important now, what's important is, that it has begun."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

The Beginning

Three Weeks Earlier:

Jean was sick of this, ever since she returned the stupid 'Squad' had been tracking her every move, interrupting her at various times, and occasionally causing her to have accidents such as this morning when Jamie jumped out of the pantry and caused her to spill the coffee all over the floor.

That was bad enough, but they were also treating her like a time bomb, which was amusing at first, but her son had begun to notice. She was just done. Doing someone a favor was one thing, but if that favor was impacting your life you had the right to revoke it, right? Right. So she was done.

This was the speech Jean had been practicing for the last six hours, before finally getting up the nerve to make the call. She had just dialed, however when Julian appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and made her scream.

As usual, when she screamed it caused the lock down to trigger. The sheets of steel descended on the windows, the doors all sealed, the red warning lights flashed, the alarms sounded, and even from here she could hear the students being escorted to the danger room out of the line of fire. The worst part though was communication was cut off, just as the line picked up.

Logan came barreling into the room, with Wanda, John, and Jamie at his heels, screaming in his 'calming voice' "Now Now Jean, there's no reason to over-react and have another indecent is there? No no there isn't. SO let's all just take a deep breath and use our words. Words not Powers."

Jean rolled her eyes. 'Words not Powers' had appeared on every wall in the school six months ago after Logan had attended an Anger Management Class. He seemed to forget as soon as he had gotten home that the reason for taking the class in the first place was that he had freaked out in the mall when a saleswoman had offered him a free sample and destroyed the bakery. Instead he had adopted 'Words not Actions' and made it his own. There was an entire new chapter in the Book on the matter, as well as several new charts.

Jean opened her mouth to accuse Julian of being responsible for her scream, but was interrupted by Wade entering the room wearing full body armor and carrying a fire extinguisher. Everyone turned to the man and stared for a few moments before Logan finally (once again in his 'calming voice) asked Wade why he was wearing a cowboy hat on top of his mask. While Wade explained his reasoning, which seemed to include "Sneaking up on an elusive pocket dragon eating a peanut butter taco." Jean slipped from the room.

She pulled out her cell phone, and hoped that he would answer the phone if he saw it was her. She dialed quickly as she dived into the laundry room, the others had noticed her absence and were following her. The line picked up just as Logan ran through the door, with a large butterfly net, a sedative in a syringe, and a bullhorn (so that she could better hear his calming tone).

Before Logan could speak Jean said "I'm sorry about this" into the phone and turned on the speaker. She held it out to the others who froze wondering what diabolical plan would come of this.

"Sorry about what? What's going on Jean? Is Nate okay?" came a familiar voice through the speaker." Is it Rach?"

"What the- Violator?!" Logan said, through the bullhorn.

"Jean? What did you do?" Scott said through the speaker, now sounding angry.

"I couldn't take it anymore Scott! I can't even breathe without someone thinking I'm about to freak out. It's one thing to let them all think you're dead because you're stupid, but I've spent three years with them thinking I murdered you and got away with it! They can't make you come back here, so now they know the truth." Before Scott could respond she hung up on him, then turned to the others.

"... You mean Violator isn't dead?" Logan said, now lowering the bullhorn.

"Nope."

"You didn't Phoenix out and forget about it?"

"...Nope"

"We wasted hours of resources and time creating an unnecessary squad that could have been better spent on the Salesmen Threat?"

"Yup"

The others saw Logan's expression as he processed this, and by the time he had dropped the bullhorn only Jean, Julian and Wade remained in the room...or the East Wing. Luckily for Jean, and the rest of them, Wade managed to process his anger in a timelier manner than Logan. Unfortunately for them all, Julian was having one of his rare moments when he paid attention throughout an entire conversation.

"Three years! THREE. . Of my LIFE I wasted on this! You! You tricked me! I swore I wouldn't get dragged into your insanity like everyone else around here, and somehow you managed it anyway! How? How did you do it?! I don't even pay attention when you're teaching, let alone ranting and yet you managed to steal three years of my life?!" Julian said pointing and Logan before turning on Jean. "And you! You knew it was all a great big lie and you just let it go on. I could've been gone from here! I could have gotten away from this nuthouse, but noooo. Instead I get sucked into this idea that miss big bad class five is going to go nuclear any day now and we have to protect the world from her! Are you really even a class five? Are you really even a mutant at all? I mean in all the time I've been here I've never so much as seen you move a pen with your 'powers' how do we know you even have powers? Maybe you just like attention! I could be anywhere right now! I could be in Paris or London, or Springfield! I could be saving lives for real instead I'm stuck here with a crazy badger looking freak for a boss and some zen-washout nut job as my therapist living in the woods. How did I get into this? I'm out. Done. Over. Goodnight."

"Julian-" Logan began.

"No sir, I said good night." Julian replied as he walked out of the room.

"...It's three in the afternoon! You still have another English class to teach!" Logan said.

"You teach it then; I need a nap." said Julian's muffled voice from down the hall.

Wade, as it turned out had used the time Julian was ranting to think further on the subject and had decided he was not angry after all. In fact, he saw this as a good thing. Now they could focus on the real threat. "Okay. So, the whole Phoenix thing is off the table, which is good. By this evening I can get the members refitted so we can take on the Elves. I found the tracks of at least five more today in the pantry. I know, I know, Wanda assured us all those weren't elf track, and were in fact the fingerprints left over from when she was teaching the kids how to make cookies this morning, but think I can tell the difference between fingerprints and elf tracks. Those sir were elf tracks, and because we have wasted so much money on watching the red-head, including all the surveillance updates last week, we still can't afford to import the pocket dragons, and catching wild domestic pocket dragons in this climate without peanut butter is next to impossible. Since you still won't let me have back my ammo we have to resort to pocket dragons, if you would just give me back my ammo we could have it handled, or at least my real swords. I swear I wouldn't hurt any of the students, and I would only maim certain members of the staff, I've gotten a lot better at my anger control issues and my memory troubles, plus the elf threat is increasing and why are we all standing around in the laundry room when the elves keep getting in through the kitchen. I'm going to rewire the surveillance feeds to catch the elves so you and Mr. High-and-Mighty out in the woods can see I'm not just crazy. Oh and here's the new numbers you wanted on baby-projections, with the new batch of students. Also, I decided not to violate the court order on giving you those Sales Projections, I gave them to Ororo instead, I'm going to go inform the rest of the PPS that they are now on elf duty. Also, young lady, if you ever waste valuable time like this again you won't have to worry about the look Logan is giving you right now. Okay, have fun."

"...Did he just threaten me, or the make believe elves, or you?" Jean asked after Wade had left the room, skipping happily and ripping pages from his copy of The Book. She saw the expression on Logan's face, and slowly walked the other way as he chased after Wade silently thanking Wade for distracting Logan from her.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

The Plan

AN: There was a family emergency, the next chapter won't be out for awhile.

Julian woke feeling refreshed, at peace, and calm. Then he remembered what had happened. After he cleaned up the mess he made of his class files, which he had thrown across the room upon remembering, Julian sat down to decide what to do with the rest of his life. Staying here in this madhouse seemed like the worst possible option. Partly because he was feeling very betrayed at the moment, and partly because he was already starting to feel guilty over skipping out on his duties this afternoon. If he wasn't careful, Logan would use his crazy mind control (Which Julian was convinced was real and getting stronger all the time) to make Julian forget this insult and go back to work as usual.

Despite his earlier rant, Julian had given no real thought to where he would be right now if he hadn't stayed at the school. In fact, he didn't remember what he had originally planned to do after high school. When he realized this, Julian ended up once more cleaning up all of his files. After he safely locked them in his briefcase, he sat down to map out a plan. (Later Jean would bring him back his briefcase which he threw out the window when he realized he actually owned and used a briefcase for the last two years).

The one thing he knew he wanted to do, after thirty minutes of grumbling- and a disgruntled thanks to Jean- was marry his longtime girlfriend Laura. That and get out of here, somewhere-anywhere. Because the second part of this plan was more of a thought than an actual plan at this point, Julian decided to focus on the first part.

The problem here remained the same as it had been since the first time he thought of it years ago, getting both Laura and her father to agree. Julian admitted to himself that despite the fact that he personally didn't care if Logan approved, he knew that Laura would. He also was slightly concerned that the crazy mind control would trick him into caring at some point before the wedding and ruin everything without permission from said overbearing parent.

Julian sat in his chair a bit longer, trying to come up with an idea to make his plan work. He was halfway through grading his homework sheets when it finally hit him. Jamie would have an idea. Also he had sworn he was quitting, yet he was sitting here grading papers- man Logan really was good!

Julian decided to go hunt Jamie down as soon as he had finished his work, because he had already started, and these kids were already trapped here, there was no point in making things harder on them by not finishing. Thirty minutes later, Julian went in search of Jamie who he assumed would be in his dorm room by now. Probably doing homework. Jamie was in his final year at Xavier's, and had already pledged to stay on as a teacher when he finished.

Jamie was indeed in his room, but he wasn't doing homework, Julian discovered. Instead he was carefully gluing potatoes on the bodies of garden gnomes. Each potato had an ugly little face painted on it, that had a very evil scowl.

"What are those?" Julian asked as he sat down next to Jamie at the desk.

Jamie shrugged. "Corporate Elves."

"…Why?"

"Why not?"

Julian wondered briefly what exactly Jamie was doing, but then decided to drop it. He had more important things to worry about. Jamie fixed on the last head, and turned his attention to Julian.

"So…you've been here forever."

"Yup."

"And you get away with more stuff than anyone else here."

"Usually."

"So you can help me out."

"Maybe."

"Okay. SO After this afternoon, I decided I want to make some changes with my life, and the only thing I know for sure that I want to change is I want to marry Laura. Which we all know I've wanted for a while but I'm afraid Logan would kill me if I brought it again, so…how do I make him okay with it?"

"If I knew that, I'd be engaged myself. Ask Gambit, he's the only one I know of who Logan was totally on board with getting married and stuff."

"Gambit and Rogue are gone! No one even knows where they went after they left! How am I supposed to know where to find them?"

"I know where they are" Jamie said as he pulled out his phone.

"Wait! I know! Gambit loves to gamble right? I bet they are either in Vegas or Atlantic City!"

"Actually, they're-"

"Okay, so I just need to go to Vegas…or Atlantic City and I can find them! Surely someone knows them in one of the casinos. You wanna come along?"

Jamie had been getting rather irritated at Julian cutting him off until this last offer, at which point he put his phone back in his pocket and jumped up to go pack. After all who wouldn't want to take a little vacation right before graduation? He'd already taken all of his finals so it wasn't like he was going to miss anything important. Besides, he was concerned about the crazed look Julian had. Jamie had seen it before many times, in many faces and that look meant they needed someone with them. This was going to be fun!

~o~o~o~

Logan had no idea when the last time he was this angry was. He'd allowed himself to get distracted from the Big Picture earlier with this minor setback with Jean. Sure he'd wasted man-hours and resources on a false claim of threat, and yes he could have spent the resources better against the real already established threat of the Salesmen and (of course) the BA, but now was not the time to become discouraged. That's just what the salesmen and the teenagers were waiting for! For him to let down his guard!

In fact, now that he'd had time to think about it, he was relatively certain that this whole 'Phoenix Threat' had been set up by the salesmen to destabilize and otherwise confuse their efforts to keep the Salesmen and Baby threats under control! Now that he saw the truth, it was time to get to work countering them, because the worst could happen any day now. Now was the time for a meeting…and perhaps more recruiting in the upper grades.

Logan, no longer feeling at all confused or defeated powered up his computer. It was time for some fresh research. And Charts! He'd need more charts! And another few chapters added to the Book regarding the issues of false threat reporting aa well as a new system handling threats. It was going to take all night to get all of this together, he was sure.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

The Escape

They waited until after curfew check to leave. Julian decided to do it this way, because though he was an adult and perfectly capable of leaving on his own- and Jamie would be 18 in just over a month- Julian wasn't actually sure they were allowed to leave. At least not without telling the person at the security desk that they were leaving. He was through with Logan's ridiculous rules though! Even if it did kind of make sense to him that they needed to know who was on the grounds in case of an emergency- There he went again, being understanding of Logan's overbearing and medieval way of running things!

He'd even left a note in the front office informing Wanda (who was now Logan's Assistant Headmaster) that he would be gone for a few days so she could re-schedule his classes. He'd also left his lesson plans for the next week as well as the homework he had finished grading before he left…Not for Logan but because it was the right thing to do for the kids.

Though he did consider just pitching his entire briefcase in the pool twice before heading to the office. If not for the fact that John was on night patrol tonight, and Julian was especially susceptible to John's 'logical' brainwashing, he might have done it. He didn't want to be trapped here until the end of the schoolyear! He would be, if he ran into John or Wanda or Kitty or Pete or especially Logan… Wade it was a toss-up, and Jean and Emma were the worst. They could make him change his mind completely. No it was best to escape unnoticed.

In hindsight, if one wants to escape unnoticed, one would likely want to avoid taking the loudest car in the garage… or screaming into the intercom" You can't stop me this time Logan, I'm finally free of your insane dictatorship!"

It may be advisable as well, that if one wanted to avoid Logan's wrath and possibly him following, one may wish to borrow any car other than Logan's. Julian wasn't thinking clearly however, and it seemed like the best idea at the time.

Jamie frowned as he watched the side view mirror, ignoring Julian's cackling. Julian finally noticed Jamie wasn't joining in his fun after about five miles, and asked the younger boy what was wrong. Jamie sighed in return before pointing toward the rear window as he said. "Logan sent someone after us."

"Impossible! Logan was asleep when we left, even he's not that fast."

"Logan wasn't asleep. We left ten minutes after bed-check. Logan never goes to sleep before second bed check at two am. Why do you think he's so cranky in the morning? He was probably in his room, reading through his charts when we left, since it isn't his night for rounds."

"… How do you know all that? Never mind! Why wouldn't he just follow us himself if it's him? I think you're just getting paranoid in your old age."

"It's Wade's car. Besides Logan wouldn't leave right now, not after what happened today. He's far too busy trying to decide who it was that let the Salesmen get to him… and at dinner he announced a crackdown on all rules, because the Baby threat has increased."

"He what? Never mind. It can't be Wade; they won't know were gone yet."

"Yeah, because screaming into the intercom was really stealthy." Jamie muttered before pulling out his phone and typing a text.

Julian pretended not to hear Jamie's jab and though he was curious who Jamie could be texting this late at night when all of Jamie's friends were in bed back at Xavier's he decided to mind his own business. After all, it was a slippery slope to Logan, and the first step was curiosity.

~o~O~o~

John had just finished his rounds and was about to head to his apartment, and hopefully sleep before any of his children needed him, when Julian's voice came through the loudspeakers. Wade came into the hallway, as John sighed. So much for sleep. Wanda appeared in the doorway to their rooms a moment later, with John's uniform and fuel pack. "You know I know you know you're going with Wade. Just be careful, don't burn down anything important, and try to get back here by Friday. You agreed to have dinner with my dad, you WILL be there for it."

"Thanks, Love. Wait that's Friday? I thought I put it off a month?"

"That was a month ago John. Just be careful. Wade…never mind, just don't kill my husband."

"No promises. I still suspect he may be involved in the elf-cookie-crisis of Christmas."

"There was no- Never mind. Just go before you wake the kids."

Wade shrugged, and John followed behind (at a safe distance) as they went to the garage to grab a car and follow Julian. Whenever this sort of thing happened it was important to approach with caution… though at this point John wasn't sure if that meant Julian and Wade.

Thanks to Remy no longer being a member of the team, John frequently was partnered with Wade. John was hyper, with a short attention-span, and tended to randomly burst into either insane ramblings or for some reason, songs. Aside from Remy and Wanda, no one else wanted to work with John. No one, even his wife Emma, wanted to work with Wade thanks to his own random ramblings, so they were by default stuck together.

This on one hand was good as they didn't drive anyone else insane when stuck in a car with them for hours, on the other hand it was bad, in that they both would forget what it was they were doing in the car to begin with. Which is how after following Julian out of the city and most of the night, they ended up, not near the motel the boys stopped at, but some fifty miles away in the opposite direction, terrorizing a small café.

Wade had decided he was hungry. John had agreed that food was needed…and coffee because for some reason Wanda wouldn't let him drink coffee at home. Julian slipped away from them unnoticed as they argued over where to stop to eat.

"Anywhere that serves coffee is going to have breakfast foods, and it's too early for breakfast! We are stopping at a taco place and using the drive-thru. We are on an important mission!" Wade yelled.

"It's never too early for pancakes, and we need coffee." John said, as he grabbed the wheel before Wade could turn into the parking lot of an all-night taco stand.

"Please! Breakfast is for daylight hours otherwise the elves can sprinkle their mind dust on the food and-did you say pancake? I love pancakes! Pancakes aren't breakfast, they're cakes! It says so in their name. Where can we get these pancakes?" Wade said, as both men ignored the angry horns of the three cars they nearly hit in the struggle for the wheel.

John pointed to the café sign down the road and they headed in that direction, forgetting all about following Julian, or the near-wreck they caused behind them, or that John had been strictly forbidden from any form of caffeine after he's drank that twelve pack of cola and decided Ororo's flowers would be much prettier if they were on fire.

They arrived at the café, in good spirits and rather calm (for them), but things escalated quickly, as they often did when the two of them were unsupervised. It started when the waitress asked what they would like to order, and for reasons only Wade could understand, he decided she was an agent of the Elves.

While Wade screamed in the poor woman's face about her attempting to undermined the integrity of the fabric of the universe, John slipped into the kitchen to see if they had a phone he could use to call his wife. He'd left his phone on the charger in the car, and had just remembered that he had promised to call home if ever he decided to go out to eat with Wade.

The kitchen was small, but clean, with shiny metal surfaces and a large gas stove. The stove was the problem, because four of its burners were on, and the happily dancing blue flames called to John. Before anyone knew what was happening, the cook, the waitress, and four customers were hiding in the ladies' bathroom, while the other five customers escaped into the parking lot, and Wade destroyed the café's tables with his sword while dancing fire-monkeys spun around the dining room.

The police arrived a few minutes later, while Wade threw pieces of former tables to the fire-monkeys and newly formed fire-lions to consume. Wade was still screaming loudly to anyone who could hear him about the dangers to the universe as they knew it.

"Sir, please set down the swords, and step outside." Said one of the police officers. An older man with a balding head and grey eyebrows. He had the misfortune of having been on other calls involving Wade in the past. Unfortunately for him, because he had managed to diffuse the insane former mercenary before, he was now the one they sent in when such calls arrived.

Wade recognized the police officer and with a huge grin that no one could see under his mask, he came running out of the café to greet the officer. "Ed! How's the family? Good? Good! I need your help, there's a young lady in here who is clearly a spy and I need you to arrest her before she completely undoes the universe. Now I would just take care of her myself, but my wife tells me that if I want to stay 'former' that means I can't just take care of it myself and that is why we have police officers, though mostly the problem is, between you and me, that they keep hiding my weapons from me because for some reason they think I'm dangerous or something like that, which makes no sense. I work at a school, I would never hurt the children, so why should I be unarmed? What if we are invaded, or attacked, or the can opener breaks? Then what are we going to do if I don't have my swords or knives or guns or bombs? You blow a hole in the wall one time – okay so it was four- and all of a sudden your own wife feels it's safer if you give up the bazooka, how does that make sense?"

Ed, the police offer, just shrugged his shoulders and followed Wade back into the café. It was easier than arguing with the masked madman, and really he had no idea what the man was talking about anyway. In all his time on the police force they had never received a call about anyone shooting a hole in walls, and considering the other things this guy went on about, Ed figured it was just another one of Wade's rambles and had no truth behind it.

Inside John was still playing with his fire-creatures, as he cackled madly and demanded to know where everyone went. He still had not received his coffee.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Casinos and Bail Money

"Well, that could have been worse." John said as he and Wade walked out of the police department. " At least you had your credit cards on you so we didn't have to call home for bail money, again."

"Why didn't you have your wallet anyway? Did the elves take it? Or one of those kids at the school? Or- "Wade said, already thinking of possible revenge plans to whoever had stolen John's wallet.

"I forgot it on my dresser. I'll pay you back. Now though we got to catch up with those boys, and no more distractions- Oh look! Fireworks display!" John ran in the direction of the fairgrounds down the street. Wade stared after him for a moment, trying to decide if John was telling the truth about forgetting his wallet when he spotted a taco stand opening next to the fireworks stand.

An hour later, Wade had once more paid their bail and they were headed outside, with Officer Ed as an escort, to ensure they didn't stop at the carnival again. "You know Ed, we know where our car is parked, we really don't need help finding it. It's still right in front of the café, you said so when we checked out the first time." Wade said, Ed suppressed the desire to scream at the casual way the man behaved toward jail. He acted like he had simply spent the night in a motel, instead of now having two new court dates for destruction of property.

Of course, with this group, it was entirely possible these two saw it as nothing more than a vacation. Ed shook his head as, about a block from the café, Wade spotted a donut shop and jumped out of the car…before Ed had a chance to pull over. It was going to be a very long day.

~o~O~o~

Julian and Jamie had spent the morning getting kicked out of casinos in Atlantic City. Apparently "I'm not here to gamble, I'm looking for my former teacher who should be here somewhere, I think" was not a good excuse to walk up to the poker tables and announce what cards players were holding. Julian finally caught on to this about the fifth time security walked him out of a building. It was three more escorts later that Julian finally stopped using this method.

Meanwhile, Jamie had refused to go in again after the second time they were removed, and instead was busy on his phone as he sat on a bench next to their car. Julian flopped down next to him about the same time as Wade was diving out of a moving vehicle sixty miles away.

"I give up. I don't think Gambit's been here in a while." Julian said.

"No, I told you I know where he is, he-"

"So I ordered us plane tickets. We gotta try Vegas next. I have to warn you though Jamie. Do NOT tell those poker players anything. You tell a guy one time that there's no way he's getting the Ace of Heart because the guy next to him already has it and they act like you destroyed the world! They were nearly as bad as Logan. I'm not helping people anymore."

"Why would you tell them what's in someone else's hand? That's cheating Julian. And anyway, Remy's-"

"I already know Gambit's a great poker player! That's why I was checking the tables. Come on we have to get going."

~o~O~o~

Logan was in a bad mood. Everyone in the School was aware of it, and were avoiding him. This did nothing to help his bad mood, considering he was trying to call a meeting, yet every time he spotted one of the teachers they disappeared before he could reach them. In desperation he decided to grab them in their classrooms around lunch time.

For some reason, however, every classroom he entered had children silently copying information off of the board and no adult to be seen. (They had all hidden under desks and in closets when they heard his heavy boots in the hallway, but he was too preoccupied to realize this).

He was on the verge of using the intercom system to call an assembly instead when he received a text message informing him one of the school credit cards had exceeded its limit. Logan returned to his office to find out which card it was, and before anyone could really relax he was screaming for Kitty and Wanda. Both women sighed in frustration before they walked toward Logan's office, certain that this was going to be bad.

They were right. Wade had maxed out his card, there were 8 new expensive charges on it, all of which appeared to be in the form of payment of the same amount. Wanda took one look at it, and was livid. She recognized the amount, Wade and John had paid bail often enough, but four times in one morning? What were they up to? Ten minutes later, Logan, Wanda, and Emma were on their way to pick John and Wade up. Julian and Jamie were temporarily forgotten.

~o~O~o~

The plane landed just after six in the evening, and even though Julian wanted to start searching right away Jamie insisted they stop for something to eat and check into a hotel for the night. When Julian protested, Jamie pointed out Las Vegas was a very big place.

"You're right, it could take days to find them" Julian said, as he looked at the row of hotels before them.

"It could take weeks, since he's not here. I'm hungry Julian, let's go." Jamie said as he walked away toward the closest hotel.

Julian shrugged. Jamie was being very negative right now, but that was probably hunger speaking. Jamie was cryptic most of the time anyway, so Julian tended to ignore statements like that. Jamie would be in a better mood in the morning, and Julian was pretty tired himself after driving all night.

Jamie sat at their table and ignored Julian, instead he spent most of the meal texting. Julian was growing annoyed with the younger boy. It was one thing to be on that stupid phone while they were driving or while Julian was getting kicked out of places while he searched, but it was very rude to keep it up while they were eating.

Julian was very tempted once more to demand to know who exactly Jamie was talking to instead of paying attention to their surroundings. Julian himself had made sure to sit facing the door in case of seeing his target happen to enter this particular restaurant, though he wasn't holding out much hope.

Jamie sighed and put his phone away as their food arrived- a grilled chicken salad for Jamie and beef steak for Julian- without commenting on who he may have been speaking to. Instead he said. "SO, what's the plan for tomorrow? I mean how long are we going to hide out here before moving on?"

"I'm not hiding, I'm searching. I don't need to hide from Logan, he's not in charge of me anymore! We will stay as long as it takes to find Gambit, even if that takes a month. I can't believe you want to quit already. "

"He's not here Julian. I keep telling you that. We could stay a month or six months, doesn't change the fact that he's not here."

"You can't know that, you're just being negative."

"I do know, look, I know where-"

"Logan put you up to this didn't he? He asked you to keep an eye on me or something and now you're trying to trick me into going back to the school! I can't believe it. You Jamie. My betrayer. When did you go dark side on me? Or were you always? Have you been a mole all along? It makes so much sense now. How Logan always manages to find out what I'm planning. Because I talk to you and you're really a spy! How could I have missed this? Betrayed by my closest ally. I don't think I can even stomach the rest of this meal." Julian gave one last look of contempt to Jamie, before standing, grabbing his plate, and walking toward the exit. "I'll see you in our rooms after you finish eating. Good night."

Jamie shook his head and finished his salad slowly. Julian didn't usually get paranoid until around the third day whenever he realized Logan (or anyone else) had somehow manipulated him. Usually by morning he was back to normal. Hopefully. Meanwhile, he had just stuck Jamie with the bill. Jamie, luckily, had thought of this and made sure they had eaten in their hotel, so when the bill arrived he paid the tip but asked the meal be charged to the room.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Searching Las Vegas

Jamie woke to a paper bag being thrown on his lap early the next morning. As he reabsorbed the other Jamies that fell out of him from being bumped Julian yanked open the curtains. "Good Morning. Eat those sandwiches quickly. We have a lot of ground to cover today."

Jamie rubbed his eyes and began eating. Julian was back to normal today, which was good. Jamie wasn't built to be the reasonable or responsible one, and frankly it was scary to be so. Not that 'reasonable' 'responsible', 'sane' or 'smart' was ever words most of the school ever used for Julian. Julian now paced the room as he watched Jamie eat, anxious to get started.

To be fair, Julian had already gotten started. He had woken around three in the morning, and instead of going back to sleep as he normally would after seeing the hour on the alarm clock, he reasoned that three was really five so only an hour early, and headed out to the casinos. He'd already been banned from five before he brought Jamie breakfast…and was on the watch list of ten others. Apparently Vegas had the same kind of policies as Atlantic City, though Julian still found it a little silly and unreasonable to kick someone out just for pointing out that a hand wasn't very good. Especially when the person playing had just bet a great deal of money and the other guy was about to quit thinking said first player had something good in his hand. Surely, thought Julian, said first player didn't understand the game.

He decided however, after Jamie's reaction yesterday to this, not to mention it to him. Instead he impatiently waited while Jamie got ready, and dragged him from the room before Jamie managed to tie both shoes.

Two hours, twelve casinos, and a rather loud argument later found them hiding from security behind a curtain in an auditorium. They had been about to check if it was clear when the room began to fill with men and women in suits. Now they were stuck, and growing more afraid all the time.

They spent the next hour listening to the speech given by the tall man in the grey suit with pale faces and wide eyes. This was bad. This was worse than bad. This drove all other issues from their minds. Julian forgot all about the injustice of two days' ago or that Logan had somehow tricked him into working for the school. He forgot all about his quest to find Gambit. He forgot all about being angry that Jamie accused him of cheating intentionally the last time they had been removed. Because this was bad.

This was possibly the worst thing that could ever happen. Ever. In the history of the world. This right here, Julian thought over and over again as they listened. He had never been more frightened in his life. He was, in fact, so frightened that twice he had pulled out his phone to actually call Logan before he realized that they would be caught if he did.

One thought kept returning to him, in the midst of the thought tornado that was his mind: Logan was actually right. How could this happen? Logan was never right about anything! Now Julian was going to have to admit Logan was right, and how was that going to look after years of telling anyone and everyone within shouting distance that Logan was always wrong? No! Never mind! This was clearly a fluke and Jamie and he could handle this without anyone else knowing that there was a slight chance Logan may have been right about something.

Jamie motioned for Julian silently, since the other boy seemed to be lost in a train of thought and hadn't noticed how quiet the room had gotten. If they were going to escape now was the time. Julian nodded, and they began crawling along the edge of the room, ignoring the people gathered there who were all raptly drawn to a blank screen in the front. They had almost reached the door, when Jamie's phone began to ring.

The room turned collectively in their direction. Jamie stood up. "See I told you this wasn't the movie convention. We're on the wrong floor. Sorry to interrupt."

"Wha- oh here's my contact, we can go" Julian replied.

They turned and walked from the room before breaking into a run, hoping they wouldn't be followed. The group of men and women stood as they reached the door, but by the time they were back in the lobby no one was behind them. Jamie continued in the direction of the door; Julian was undecided. If they left right away, they would look as if they may have overheard something, but if they stayed they were likely to be found. Security decided for him a moment later, which is when Julian remembered why they had been hiding in the first place.

The guard lead Julian out of the front door, where Jamie was standing impatiently, and told him not to come back. Julian rubbed his arm and opened his mouth to retort, but Jamie kicked his foot, and reminded him they were leaving anyway.

"No Jamie, that's not the point. I'm sick of it. All these idiots always trying to enforce their rules on us innocent by-standers just minding our own business and perhaps giving ill-timed advice once in a while, meanwhile, Logan was right and the Salesmen are plotting to take over the world and no one knows or cares because they are too busy worrying about me telling some guy that his hand is terrible! Well I'm just done, the world doesn't make sense anymore anyway. It stopped making sense the moment Logan was right! But does anyone care? No! Well if no one else will stop them I'm going to and- "

"Julian shut up, we were pretending not to have heard anything remember- "

"NO JAMIE! I'm not going to duck my head and hide at the first sign of danger! I was the leader of the Prevention Squad to stop a homicidal psychotic Fire-Bird-Woman-Thing from ending the world for three freakin years! True she turned out to be perfectly safe, but we didn't know that, and I faced that danger every. single. day. Now you want me to hide from a handful of guys in suits? Please like they're even scary, and besides- Jamie RUN!" Julian cut himself off and ran at the same time when he saw a group of twenty real estate agents walking in their direction.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Enter the Authorities (Kind of) Part One

Julian and Jamie never fully understood how it had come to this, but somehow they found themselves eating donuts happily in the nicely decorated waiting area of the offices of the FBI, Washington offices. How they ended up in Washington, or in the care of the FBI was a long and confusing story, but Julian was about to do his best to explain it once again as soon as the nice agent returned. The man, Julian was pretty sure his name was Smith, said something about a headache and a supervisor so Julian wasn't sure if the man went in search of aspirin or his boss…or both.

The man (who as it turned out was name Jameson) returned with his boss as well as the aspirin that Jamie had asked for. They settled into a private room a few minutes later, and Julian finished his breakfast before he began retelling his story.

It had been a long ten and a half days for the boys since they had left Las Vegas under cover of dark, in a car Julian found in an online newspaper for less than a thousand dollars. He was scared of being tracked, so he refused to go to either the airport or a car dealership. Jamie had suggested calling home for help, but Julian still insisted he could handle this himself.

Considering the amount, he had spent on the car, and how quickly he chose to drive it, it was really very amazing that it made it all the way to Utah before dying on the side of the road. Jamie once again suggested they call home at this point, and was spending a great deal of time texting someone, but Julian was not nosey so he didn't ask who Jamie was talking to, instead he assured the younger boy that everything was going to be fine. After Jamie rolled his eyes, Julian called for a tow truck which took them to the nearest town.

Julian was now confident that they were far enough away from the trouble in Vegas to buy tickets from the bus station in town, and after they ate at the café he walked over to the ticket counter found inside the café and bought two tickets for the next bus out of there without bothering to ask where it was going.

Jamie interrupted at this point to remind Julian that they had places to be so he should hurry along the story for the agents. Julian shrugged and said. "I don't know which parts are relevant James, it is best to tell them everything that has happened."

"No one calls me James. It doesn't make you sound smarter, and they'll never believe everything. "Jamie said with a frown. "I know their type; I've dealt with them before."

"Sorry to interrupt gentlemen, but may I ask why you felt the need to run away from Las Vegas in the middle of the night in an ill-advised vehicle?" asked Agent Jameson.

"Oh that has nothing to do with why we're here, and we're handling it ourselves. No worries." Julian said.

"I still say we need to call Logan." Jamie said with another frown as he took the pills they had brought him.

"NO! I told you, I'd rather die than admit Logan was right about anything! He'll just overreact anyway and the next thing you know there will be three new volumes to the Book and we'll all have to sit through an assembly on the matter and I am _**not**_ wasting my Saturday on that one again."

"I thought you said you were quitting anyway?"

"Like I won't get roped into staying if he finds out about all this? Nope not happening, we've got this Jamie."

"We really don't Julian! I don't even remember how many places we've been the last two weeks, and you bought tickets to go back to Vegas, so everything we've done since then has probably been tracked, and now we have the mob after us and well as these nice FBI guys looking for answers. I'm calling Logan, that's all there is to it."

"NO!" Julian said as he yanks the phone from Jamie's hand and throws it on the ground, before stomping on it repeatedly, then picking up all of the pieces and throwing them in the trash. "Now where was I? Oh yes I remember."

After they realized they were on their way back to Las Vegas, Jamie had a minor breakdown that included a promise to never speak to Julian again if he got them killed, at which point Julian remembered that the bus also stopped in Remo so they could get out there and skip Vegas altogether. This was very good news…or would have been had he remembered that an hour ago when the bus stopped in Reno.

Jamie was still not talking to Julian when they reached the airport later that day, slightly harassed looking, and worn out from their day in the city. Julian immediately bought tickets for the first flight out, reasoning that he couldn't possibly be buying tickets to the wrong place again since they were still in the wrong place. The ticket clerk offered him a selection of hotel choices where they were going (Las Angelos as it turned out) and Julian agreed to a booking.

"Did you know that ticket clerks are salesman?" Julian asked the agents at this point, interrupting his own narrative.

"Yes they are, why?"

"I didn't. Too late now." Julian replied.

They reached LA and checked into their hotel room around midnight. It was the last full night's sleep they would get for the next couple of weeks, not that they knew it at the time. Jamie had forgiven Julian around the time they landed, because he had no one else to talk to but himself which was just weird unless he divided and doing so on a plane always lead to uncomfortable questions like "How did you do that? "Or "Where did you come from?" Or "Do you all have tickets?" Reabsorbing his dupes when questions started always resulted in panic, so it was just better to avoid the whole thing to begin with.

Jamie interrupted Julian at this point to ask politely if he could use the restroom, and the Agents agreed to a break in the interview. Jamie thanked them, and left the room as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. "Wait, I broke that. "Julian said

"You broke yours, I don't have Logan on my contacts, so I borrowed it." Jamie said as the door closed and Julian cursed.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Enter the Authorities (Kind of) Part Two

Jamie returned from the bathroom, and Julian continued to tell their story, though he also glared at Jamie the entire time.

They woke in the morning to the phone in their room, a salesman was on the other end, trying to get them to buy a timeshare. Jamie realized right away that they had been found, but Julian (who also realized it) stubbornly insisted they were safe. It wasn't until they reached the lobby that he was forced to agree. There were at least fifty salesmen in the lobby, who all watched them as they walked slowly toward the door.

They calmly walked into the street and then ran, followed closely by a dozen men in suits. It took them a few minutes, but thanks to Jamie's dupes they managed to escape once again. Julian then suggested that since they already knew they were in the city, and seemed to have some sort of supernatural ability to find the ones they were looking for, then it wouldn't really matter where they bought a second car from.

"Or we could call for a pick up." Jamie suggested.

"No Jamie, because then they'll want to know what we've been up to and I am not letting Logan win this one."

"So you' rather we die than ask for help?"

"Yes. Plus, nobody's going to die. Just be very scared for a while."

They continued to argue over the matter all the way to the car dealership, and as they ate brunch afterward. "I hate that word. 'Brunch'. What does it really mean anyway? Technically, if you haven't eaten since you woke up its breakfast no matter what time of day it is. Seriously, why do we need a special word for eating later than usual? Isn't it just as easy to say 'I had a late breakfast, so I skipped lunch?" I guess that is sort of long winded, they really should invent a shorter phrase to say that. Why hasn't anyone thought of that before? Wait I guess they did when they invented brunch. Never mind. That's been bugging me for years, and I finally found the answer. I'm on a roll! Anyway, where was I, oh yeah, we had just finished brunch and Jamie suggested we drive toward New Hampshire for some reason- "

Julian was once more interrupted by Jamie, who said. "Seriously Julian, we don't need to give these guys every detail. Just skip ahead to Chicago, or better, Seattle, so we can get out of here."

"DO you guys want me to skip a head or are you still interested in what lead to this?"

"Whichever is easier for you to tell."

"Julian, they could be closing in on us right now, and since you won't let anyone help us, I suggest you hurry this up."

"Fine." Said Julian frowning. "After we saw what we saw in Chicago, we drove as quickly as we could away from the city. We ended up in Seattle, which there is nowhere to drive further from Chicago after that, and we were surrounded on all sides. The mob had followed us , the salesmen were closing in, and some random bad guy super villain who I can't remembers name was also on our case for something or another, so we decided it was best to lay low. Unfortunately, they figured out where we were, and came after us. We kicked the butts of the super-villain and the mob, but the salesmen escaped somehow. Was that fast enough for you Jamie?"

"Julian, too much detail and not enough at the same time, I'm afraid." Said the Agent. "We need to know what you saw in Chicago and what happened in this battle in Seattle if we want to convict the men that attacked you."

"I'm tired of talking about it, can we take a break?" Julian said. "Maybe get a nap? Then I'll finish the story, I promise."

"You can lay down on the couches in here, I understand, you must be very tired."

"Thanks."

The two agents left the room, and the supervisor asked. "Did they give you any details the first time through it all?"

"Yes, but they both seem very stressed out. Half of what he said didn't make any sense what-so-ever. All this stuff about salesmen after them, and some guy named Logan. I think they just need a few hours to calm down, because that aside these boys are heroes. I think they are playing dumb in an attempt to protect themselves from having to testify. I really cannot phantom them being this erratic and managing to escape from this group without injury."

"Agreed. Promise them protection after they calm down a little, that may make them willing to talk about it. Just ignore these ramblings about salesmen for now, we'll work that issue out later. "

~o~O~o~

Logan was annoyed. "annoyed' was putting it mildly, but he is how he thought of it. His time in anger management taught him that annoyed was far better than his normal range of anger. It had taught him to push down his rage into a very small area where it could be ignored. It was a good two hours.

The man who ran the course understood the importance of charts, so Logan knew everything the man said was completely true. If it was on a chart it had to be true, it said so on one of Logan's charts as well as the Book.

Logan was annoyed because they still hadn't tracked down Julian and Jamie, though they had finally located Logan's car the day before. Logan had asked both Emma and Jean to try to look for the boys, or at least find out what they were up to, but both women refused. Something about ethics that he stopped listening to once they said no.

He could go after the boys, track them himself, but he didn't want to leave the other children unattended. Especially with the Baby Threat in the Red (according to Wade's calculations) and the Salesmen Threat in the yellow (according to his own calculations).Clearly his hands were tied on the matter, which just added to his annoyance and everyone else's misery, because if Logan couldn't chase down those boys at least he could make sure there were no further escapes.

Logan had added three more classes to the schedule as well as an assembly every evening and meetings every morning. They would all be too tired to try to escape, and then he wouldn't have to worry anymore about the kids, then he could just focus on real problems as well as his power management charts.

Logan was thinking of all this as he finished his latest chart and took it out to the notice board while humming. As usual he ignored the growing signs of displeasure in the halls. Teachers and children alike were standing in clusters not bothering to lower their voices as they complained about the work load. The young children of the teachers were running up the hall playing tag with each other, Wade was being scolded by his wife for attempting to steal back his weapons again, and there were hateful messages written all over one of the charts.

This last thing got his attention, Logan was used to the rest of it, but no one NO ONE messed with the charts! Someone was going to be in deep trouble for this!


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Meanwhile back at Xavier's

Wanda, Emma, Jean and Ororo all wondered which foolish child had decided to write on the charts, but they were all suffering for it, including the adults. Logan was livid. He had called this assembly as soon as he remembered how to speak after seeing what they had done. He was standing the front of the room, cracking his knuckles and muttering to himself. He seemed to have once again forgotten how to speak though, because even those sitting closest to him had no idea what he was saying.

Eventually Emma volunteered to go talk to him. Actually she'd been asked to do it. Okay, so she'd drawn the short straw, the point was she was going to attempt to talk to him. Eventually, that is, because she was about to walk over to him when Logan let out a growl that would put most wolves to shame. Emma suddenly remembered that she had a very pressing appointment that had to be taken care of right then, so she left at a very fast walk - running would draw attention- as she ignored Wanda and Ororo attempting to call her back.

Wanda and Ororo both cursed her a coward, then had a short and nearly silent argument over who had to talk to him instead. Wanda pointed out that John was already her job as was fielding all of Logan's calls, and teaching 9th to 12th math, so asking her to talk to Logan was tipping the scales on responsibility. Ororo countered with being in charge of all scheduling, the greenhouses, the botany classes and meal planning.

When neither of them would bend on who had more of a workload (though Wanda did throw in her kids to tip the scale) they decided that this was really Anna's job. After all, Anna (or Rogue) was the best at calming Logan down, so they would add it to her ever growing 'to do when she gets back from her little vacation' list. The list had been growing for the better part of three years, if the LeBeaus ever did return, (which seemed less and less likely to some members of the staff as weeks turned into years) she would be busy for weeks. Some of it had become outdated, of course, but the list was still impressively long.

Satisfied with how to handle Logan, there was still the matter of the assembly. Logan was in no shape to hold it, and nobody wanted to get close enough to take over for him. Wade decided that he would do it, when Wanda poked him. She was beginning to worry about John's tendency to confess to things he'd never done when forced to sit still too long.

Wade, who had begun to become bored himself, walked calmly up to the podium. He gently pushed Logan out of the way, with all of his might, and faced the school. He cleared his throat, and calmly said in the cheeriest voice he could muster. "We don't know who did this, and we don't know how. But know this, if it happens again we will find you and we will ki-throw you in a deep black pit... with adders, and scorpions, and squirrels. "

"Wade, you can't threaten the children like that." Ororo said, exasperated.

" 'Ro, baseless threats only work if they don't know they're baseless. Now all the children know that we don't actually have a Squirrel-Adder-Scorpion pit because of your interference so if they do it again, it's on you. Do you really want to be to blame if they decide to write on the charts again? DO have any idea how long charts take to make? If you want to be the one responsible for Logan's insanity, be my guest, but don't come crying to me when your toast is soggy with tears and dragon spit."

"…What?"

"I KNEW IT! YOU HAVEN'T READ A SINGLE MEMO HAVE YOU?! YOU AREN'T TAKING ANY OF THIS SERIOUSLY! I CAN'T WORK UNDER THESE CONDITIONS. I NEED MY SQUEAKY BALL! WHERE'S MY SQUEAKY BALL? YOU TOOK IT DIDN'T YOU! YOU WANT ME TO LOOK INSANE AND COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT. YOU'VE ALWAYS BEEN JEALOUS OF MY AWESOMESS AND MY STATUS IN THIS ESTABLISHMEN AND HAVE BEEN UNDERMINDING ME FROM THE BEGINNING! YOU PROBABLY DON'T EVEN TAKE THE SALESMEN AND BABY THREATS SERIOUSLY! YOU WERE THE ONE WHO TRIED TO TALK LOGAN OUT OF THE PHEONIX PREVENTION SQUAD AND LOOK HOW THAT ENDED! GOOD DAY TO YOU WOMAN!"

"Wade, the PPS turned out to be unnecessary and-"

"THAT'S WHAT THE ELVES WANT US TO THINK! IN REALITY WE NEED IT NOW MORE THAN EVER. JUST TODAY I FOUND EVIDENCE OF ELFINFLITRATION ALL THE WAY DOWN IN THE DANGERROOM. THEY'VE GOTTEN AS FAR AS THE DANGERROOM AND YOU STILL DON'T SEE THE THREAT. I FOUND SIX LITTLE SMELLY ELVES DOWN THERE!" Wade pulled out the 'elf' he had found to waive in Ororo's face.

"That's a statue with a potato on it instead of a head."

"DON'T TELL ME WHAT IT IS! I KNOW WHAT IT IS, IT'S A CORPRATE ELF! IF YOU CAN'T RECOGNIZE THEM FOR WHAT THEY REALLY ARE HOW ARE YOU GOING TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN FROM THEM? THINK OF THE CHILDREN! THESE POOR FRIGHTENED LITTLE WAIFS ARE TERRIFIED AND IT'S BECAUSE YOU DON'T SEE THE TRUTH. POOR LOGAN HAS LOST HIS MIND THANKS TO YOUR NON-SUPPORTIVE ATTITUDE AND THE BRATINESS OF THE CHILDREN, WHICH IS CLEARLY CAUSED BY YOUR REFUSAL TO RESPECT THE CHARTS." Wade had begun pacing as he shook the statue, which lost its potato head while he was screaming.

The children began calmly sneaking out of the auditorium, led by Paige, Jonothon, Wanda, John, Kitty, Piotr, and Hank. The little ones had already been removed by Jubilee and Bobby when Logan had begun knuckle popping. Soon it was just Wade, Ororo, and Logan in the room. Wade looked around, before dropping the smelly statue from his hand as he said. "Well that worked well. Better than any speech we could have mustered."

"You mean you were faking it?" Ororo said.

"You'll never know, and I'll never tell." Wade said in a sing song voice before he walked from the room.

Ororo walked over to Logan who seemed a bit calmer to ask him if he was all right. He glared at her impressively before he strode from the room as he yelled. "Wade! John!" The two in question appeared right away, as they were both still at the end of the hall talking to Wanda.

"I don't know where you two have gotten to, but assemble a team and go find those boys! I'm done being Mr. Nice guy, clearly I've given too much slack around here."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

FBI Headquarters

Julian and Jamie were now well rested and calmer. The FBI agents decided to send in a less threatening interviewer, so they called in Agent Emily Vallart. Julian and Jamie were sitting together at the conference table when she came in, reading the file.

"Hi, Ms. Vallart." Jamie said happily, thankful to see a familiar face.

"Do I know you?" she asked

"Nope. You knew some friends of mine a few years back." Jamie said.

"I see. Well then, let's get to it shall we?"

"Okay." Jamie said happily, but Julian cleared his throat to interrupt.

"Who is she?"

"She used to work as a therapist."

"You were in therapy?"

"Nope, but lots of others were."

"Why didn't I know this? No wait, there used to be that guy therapist that lives in the woods now."

"She was before him, she quit the day you arrived. Not because of you though."

"Well of course not because of me! I've never made anyone quit. GO nuts? Yeah, that used to be a ton of fun, but never quit."

Agent Vallart was beginning to feel nervous now, Jamie had already looked vaguely familiar (she hated working with teenagers, the brought back bad memories) but what he was saying scared her…if it was these people…

"Anyway. We agreed to tell it once more from the top." Julian said, still frowning. "I'll begin. It all started a few weeks ago, after I learned that the last three years had been a LIE and my life had been STOLEN from me, I decided I wanted to talk to the only people to ever escape completely, because I wanted unrelated advice. But no one knows where the LeBeaus are anymore-"

"Actually I-" Jamie said.

"Did you say LeBeau? Remy? Rogue? Katie?" Said Agent Vallart, as Jamie sighed.

"Yes, do you know them?" said Julian.

"Years ago. Go on."

"Anyway. Because no one knows where they are, I decided to look in the most likely places, which led us to Vegas where we ran into a bit of unrelated trouble and were trying to avoid said trouble when we reached Chicago."

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but can you explain this Vegas trouble?"

"Nope. It's unrelated. I will not speak of it, if you do indeed know Logan, you are likely to inform Logan and I will never admit he is right about anything after the last three years." Julian said with a frown. "Look I might have trouble remembering certain things like any number aside from 74…and 47, but I'm no idiot. Besides it has nothing to do with you, so mind your own business. We ain't got a lot of time before they catch up with us and we need to be going soon. Anyway as I was saying, we were busy minding our own business when we overheard a certain conversation between some heads of criminal organizations planning criminal activities that I recorded on my phone and already handed over when we were spotted and had to run for our lives. Again. SO in summery. Crime bosses. Planning to sell some stuff and kill some people. You all have the recording. Can we go now before they find us?"

"Who? Logan?"

"No no, Logan's not going to find us, he's probably distracted by some charts and forgotten all about us by now, well maybe still mad, but not following us certainly."

"Actually, according to The Book, pocket edition, run away students and staff are given a month to come to their senses before they are tracked down to either return or officially resign." Said Jamie pulling out a copy of the book.

"Traitor! You brought that with us on this trip? What else are you hiding from me? Are you really working for them?"

"Nothing, I keep trying to tell you stuff and you don't listen. Like I know where-" Jamie said with a pout.

"Wait! Logan's coming here?" Agent Vallart was beginning to panic.

"Him or Wade." Said Julian casually as if the matter was of no importance.

"Wade? The sword freak obsessed with ninjas and elves?" She was even more frightened of Wade than Logan.

"Ninjas? Oh no, he forgot about those guys' years ago when he started obsessing over salesmen like Logan. Because Logan can convince anybody of anything apparently. Even me to stay instead of going to Paris. Or London. Or Springfield." Julian said, and it was then that Agent Vallart realized these boys were just as crazy as the rest of them. What scared her the most was that meant they were also being truthful. She spent far too long on this case before switching careers, and knew from experience that the Xaviers' people were insane, impulsive, destructive, and completely honest when it came to these kinds of situations.

She excused herself to go inform the other Agents what she had learned, and to request her vacation time. Ten minutes later, the boys were once more on their way, and the FBI was convinced that they were geniuses, who were masters of deceptions. With the added greenlight from Agent Vallart on their truthfulness her bosses were convinced the 'insane-stupid' thing was just an act. After all, two young people who behaved in such a bizarre manner couldn't possibly solve such a huge case unless they were faking their ineptness, right?

The boys had just reached the parking lot, when they saw the first salesman. A portly balding man in a grey pinstripe suit and black tiny nametag. These were, in Julian's opinion, the worse type. With their constantly present cell phone they could have a crowd of salesmen on the car before the boys could reach it. Julian saw the man already speaking into a phone, and hurriedly pushed Jamie along as they ran for the car. They reached at the same time as a woman in a pink suit.

"Hello boys, can I interest you in some free samples?" she asked with a smile, as Jamie screamed and Julian fumbled with the keys. This was it, it was the end for them. He finally managed to push the unlock button as the woman was joined by a younger man in a yellow polo shirt.

What he was selling, they would never know because they dived into the car, and drove off with screeching tires before either managed to close their doors or fasten their seatbelts. Julian being a semi-responsible adult type being did stop at the edge of the parking lot to correct this, however. Because no matter how terrified he was, he had a perfect driving record, and these beasts weren't taking that from him!

The salesmen, devoid of their target, milled around the parking lot for a few minutes, before calling back to headquarters. It was decided then that they may try to return to Xaviers. Luckily (or unluckily depending on who you were) there was a sales convention being held just fifty miles from Bayville, that could be transferred by morning.

~o~O~o~

Wade and John were now joined by Bobby and Piotr in the search for the missing boys. For some reason neither could understand, Logan decided they were not trustworthy enough to go out just the two of them. Seriously, you get arrested four times in the same day, and all of a sudden you aren't trustworthy. Besides, if that carnival didn't want the fireworks set off, why did they set the display so close to where the public could see it? And ropes to keep people out? Really? All that did was make getting there more fun. Sadly, though, for them, Bobby and Piotr were the 'Lets focus on work and no fires' type.

This trip was bound to be very boring and possibly productive unless they acted fast and managed to shake their escorts. John and Wade decided this was their first priority after they were told no twice about stopping for snacks. I mean really, who doesn't take snacks on a road trip? So, technically this was a mission, but really they didn't think there was much of a difference. Now they just needed to figure out how to do it.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

The Salesmen arrive

The alarms sounded at dawn, waking everyone at the school. Five minutes after the first horn, everyone was gathered in the main building, the children safely hidden in the danger room. No one asked what was wrong, they'd seen it through the windows. The Salesmen were here.

A makeup saleswoman was standing in the front, her smile and bag equally creepy, next to her stood a man selling timeshares, on the other side was what appeared to be the dreaded vacuum salesman. They were the worst kind of all. Logan was the current owner of twenty-seven vacuums…and every room in the school was hard floors. After he'd bought his fifth vacuum a flooring salesman had convinced him carpeting in a school was foolish. After the tenth, a different flooring salesman convinced him that area rugs were equally foolish. Not one of the twenty-seven vacuums had a 'hard surface' setting either.

Timeshares were nearly as dangerous, Logan was the part-owner of six vacation spots already, including a cabin in Northern Alberta, despite the fact that he already owned a vacation home fully just five miles away from his timeshare. Storm was particularly worried about Mr. Timeshare until he shifted, and she saw the cleaning supplier.

This was worse than any of them could imagine! If just one of these salespeople got through the gate, Logan was sure to empty his bank account (again). They set to work immediately. Piotr generally handled the hose, but with him gone it was up to Kitty and Wanda. Meanwhile, Ororo led Logan downstairs to watch after the children, and Paige handed out the water balloons to the staff and eldest students as Jonothon filled them.

They watched each other from either side of the gate. The X-men standing stoically with their water wielding supplies and long sticks (used to push salesmen further back if they came to close) on one side, and the Salesmen, now milling about and chattering to each other as well as yelling offers through the bars, on the other. This kind of standoff could last all day…or days. As more arrived, Paige made the painful suggestion of calling the other four back from their mission. Not wanting to expose Logan needlessly to the salesmen, they decided to wait a bit longer.

~o~O~o~

John and Wade had managed to shake Bobby and Piotr at a gas station, by claiming that they needed to use the restroom. Bobby had agreed, and followed them inside to buy everyone a drink and pay for the gas. While he was waiting in line, the other two slipped back outside and into the car as Piotr put the gas cap back. When he turned to see if the others were coming yet, John started the car and drove away while yelling. "Sorry mate! We'll find the boys, just catch a cab home!"

"Come back! You are not to be going without us!" Piotr said as Bobby rushed outside.

"Darn it! I knew they couldn't be trusted." Bobby said as he stomped his foot. "Hold on, I'll call for a pick up."

"Do you think they will cause trouble?"

"They'll be arrested by the state line. Those two could find trouble in a padded room." Bobby listened for a moment before hanging up. "There's something wrong, the school's on lock down."

They sat down on the curb to think of their next move. Piotr had hopefully suggested that perhaps if they called Wade and John and told them there was trouble at the school the men would return. Bobby didn't think that would work but tried anyway. The phone picked up on the first ring.

"Look,we ain't comin back for you. You're anti-tacos, and we just can't travel with that kind of negativity. I'm sorry you'll just have to go back without us." Wade said over the line.

"The school's on lock down, we can't get through. Something's wrong we all need to go back and help."

"Nice try but if something was wrong my 'alert alarm' would be going off. You're just jealous we're eating tacos and you're not. You had your chance. Don't worry we'll find the boys and bring them home."

"Do you even have your alarm on you Wade? I thought you left it with Wanda just in case." Bobby said, trying to get Wade to see reason. Which is like trying to convince a polar bear that it would really like to have a nice salad instead of that harbor seal.

Wade hung up on him so Bobby had no choice but to call for a cab and hope that he had enough in his emergency account to cover it. Wade and John would just have to deal with whatever they got themselves into on their own…and so would the boys.

~o~O~o~

Julian and Jamie had driven all night, but they were finally in the last place Julian could think of to look for Gambit and Rogue. New Orleans. It was now more than ever important to find them and ask for their help, so he decided to take a shot at Jamie's suggestion. He still didn't really understand why they would be here, after all Gambit hated his family. Julian remembered that much, but Jamie kept insisting it was the place to look.

Julian was trying to figure out a good place to stop and ask if anyone had seen the couple without alerting the salesmen to their location while Jamie continued to text. This was getting to the point of ridiculousness! Jamie never put the darn thing down. Didn't he know how rude he was being? Plus, Julian was convinced that the phone was how the salesmen found them the last three times, never mind Jamie's theory that it was his own tendency to scream out of the car window at vendors. In fact, there was another one right in front of him.

Julian rolled down the window and screamed. "Hey you! I know what you're up to and we're going to stop you! I'm not afraid of your crazy cult!" As had happened in every other city by the next block, they were heavily surrounded by salesmen and Jamie was screaming at him about his impulse control.

"I think it's time I send the message, Julian. We need help." Jamie said as they hid in a parking garage near a mall.

"No! I will not admit that Logan has ever been even slightly right about anything! ...Okay, he may be correct that 74 times 1 is not 47, but other than that he has never been right!"

"…I can't believe you're a teacher. Look I won't send it to the X-Men, okay? I'll send it to someone else who can help us."

"Who else is crazy enough to believe us and come help Jamie? I mean if I hadn't been there I wouldn't believe it."

"Normally, I would agree with you but you just reminded me that you are a self-proclaimed mathiest." Jamie said while pulling back out his phone and typing rapidly.

"I'm sick of that stupid phone! All the darn time you're typing on that stupid thing even now when we are about to die! Just drop it!"

"I sent it. To Sinister." Jamie said as Julian pulled the phone from his hand and tossed it out of the car.

"Who?"

"The crazy vampire who is Gambit's sort-of dad." Jamie said as he opened his car door to retrieve his phone. "He'll help if only because he'll believe that Gambit's in trouble. Which reminds me, now I have to warn Gambit that Sinister is likely to show up at his house."

"How? We don't even know where to find Gambit." Julian yelled as Jamie wiped muck off the face of his phone.

"I've told you- "Jamie was cut off by the arrival of the first salesman. He barely closed his car door when Julian hit the gas tearing out of the garage.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

As one battle ends, another begins

Bobby sighed heavily as they arrived at the mansion before handing his credit card to the cab driver. There were salesmen everywhere, some sitting off to the side, soaked through with water and muttering to themselves, but most pressing against the gates. Logan must have been watching the shopping channels again, Bobby assumed.

Piotr was already out of the cab and walking calmly through the crowd patiently repeating over and over again. "No thank you, we aren't interested. Please move along." As he sprayed salesmen with the water bottle he always kept in his flight bag for these situations.

Within an hour they had cleared the area in front of the school and were let inside. Wanda and Kitty asked what had happened, while Jubilee was just grateful her husband had arrived before Logan was broke (again). Logan, meanwhile, was unaware of how bad the threat had been and was busy with the monthly budget in his office.

Soon enough it was decided that no one would mention to Logan that Wade and John were once more unsupervised, instead Bobby and Piotr would take a second car and try to find the boys on their own. Kurt had called a little while ago, to tell Kitty that his sister was expecting the boys sometime in the next few hours, so if they left now, they should hopefully be able to catch up.

Everyone assured Bobby that if the salesmen were to return they could handle it, so the guys were on the road just before dinner time to everyone's relief. Hopefully this latest crisis would soon be resolved. Piotr had called John's phone which had gone right to voicemail, and left a message telling them where to go. With any luck, John would actually listen to the message and as long as Wade didn't decide it was another elf plot they could all meet up by tomorrow morning.

~o~O~o~

Jamie was tired, angry, hungry, and he was pretty sure his phone was broken. He was also now walking down the side of a pretty scary road with Julian driving slowly behind him begging him to get back into the car.

"No. Not until you agree to go back to New Orleans so we can finally talk to Gambit." Jamie called over his shoulder.

After the parking garage Julian had decided that New Orleans was too dangerous, Gambit would never have gone there anyway, and that river boats should be a good place to look. Jamie had protested this theory, but Julian had driven straight out of the city.

Just on the outskirts of the city Julian had stopped for gas which is when Jamie decided to walk off. He was sick of all of this, he just wanted to warn Gambit and Rogue and call for a ride home so he could tell the X-men what had happened and finish his garden gnome project.

Julian finally agreed to look one last time in the city if Jamie got back in the car. Not because he believed Jamie that they would have better luck here but because he was worried Jamie was going to do something crazy, like call Logan or confront a salesman, or call Logan.

"I don't get why you're so convinced we'll find them here anyway. I keep telling you Jamie, I remember, Gambit hated his family. They made him crazy. No way would he come here."

"He said as they were leaving he was coming here. One. Two, Rogue told me they were here." Jamie said with a frown as he tried to turn his phone on once more.

" When was that? No one's even heard from them since they left!"

"I've been trying to tell you for weeks Julian! I talk to Rogue all the time. She's on my Facebook." Jamie replied.

"What? And this is the first I'm hearing about it?! What kind of friend are you that you don't tell me that you know where to find who I need to talk to? DO you know how much trouble we could have avoided if you had just told me to begin with that you knew where they were? What's wrong with you?"

"WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?! WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?! I'VE BEEN TELLING YOU FOR DAYS! WEEKS! I'VE TRIED OVER AND OVER AGAIN TO TELL YOU! YOU NEVER LISTEN! AT LEAST EIGHT DIFFERENT PEOPLE INCLUDING ME KNOW EXACTLY WHERE TO FIND THEM! LOGAN KNOWS WHERE TO FIND THEM! IF YOU HAD EVER BOTHERED EVEN ONCE TO OPEN THE BOOK YOU WOULD KNOW WHERE TO FIND THEM BECAUSE IT'S LISTED IN THE 'FORMER MEMBERS WHO WILL BE BACK AFTER THEIR VACATIONS' DIRECTORY! YOU NEVER PAY ATTENTION TO ANYONE AND THAT'S WHY YOU DON'T KNOW THAT 74 TIMES 1 IS 74. OR THAT WE ARE CURRENTLY IN THE 21 CENTURY NOT THE 20TH. OR THAT IF YOU REALLY WANT TO MARRY LAURA ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS ASK HER BECAUSE SHE'S A FREAKIN ADULT AND DOESN'T NEED OR WANT LOGAN'S APPROVAL." Jamie screamed.

"I DON'T WANT LOGAN MAD AT ME OKAY? I'M NOT GOING TO BE THE REASON LOGAN AND LAURA FIGHT. HOW IS THAT SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND? AND THE ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD WHO CAN TELL ME HOW TO MAKE LOGAN OKAY WITH IT IS GAMBIT, SO I'VE TRAVELED ALL OVER THE FREAKIN COUNTRY, GOTTEN NEARLY KILLED SIX TIMES, SURVIVED ON COFFEE FOR A FREAKIN WEEK, AND PUT UP WITH YOUR CONSTANT TEXTING JUST SO I CAN FIND OUT AND FINALLY BE HAPPY AND NOW YOU TELL ME THAT IT WASN'T A NECESSARY TRIP? DON'T YOU THINK IT WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE TO MENTION THAT BEFORE NOW?"

"O.M.G. I DID! OVER AND OVER, BUT YOU IGNORED ME! Thurn left here. JUST LIKE ALWAYS! YOU NEVER LISTEN TO ANYONE JULIAN AND THAT YOUR REAL PROBLEM! Right here at the next intersection. YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY YOU CAN'T GET ALONG WITH LOGAN? THE REAL REASON WHY? BECAUSE YOU'RE JUST LIKE HIM! Third house on the left. "

"I see. Well if you're so convinced I'm so much like Logan, why are you even here?" said Julian as he parked the car.

"Because." Said Jamie as he climbed out of the car. "You're my friend, and I have to keep you safe."

~o~O~o~

Night had fallen by the time everyone at the school had completely calmed down from the earlier scare. Throughout the evening one of the teachers would casually walk out to the fence to make sure no new salesmen had appeared, but aside from two who were quickly sent away right around dinnertime none had appeared. It was strange that they had given up so easily, but they decided to just be grateful and not question it.

It didn't occur to anyone, because Logan was unaware of the latest threat and Wade was somewhere in Alabama getting into a fight with a rather tall woman over some pizza, that if the salesmen had given up this easily that meant they had found a different target. If Logan or Wade had been available to help, they may have prevented what came next, but no one wanted to tell Logan what went on this morning. Wanda had convinced him that it had been a drill, which pleased him to think the others were taking these things seriously.

Whatever their reasoning, everyone went to bed with untroubled minds, unaware that in just a few hours they would be getting the worst news in years.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

It Begins

Now

Logan stood before the others as the dramatic silence that seemed to have stretched a ridiculously long period of time, perhaps twelve chapters, was finally broken by Kitty. "What do you mean, 'It's Begun?"

"The Salesmen have begun their assault, I received this video just a few minutes ago. We need to figure out where the boys are now, because wherever they are, they are in great danger." Logan replied.

"They went to go see Gambit and Rogue, they should be there soon." Said Kitty. Everyone was watching the video now displayed on the big screen in the front of the room.

"Okay. So seriously though, can we trust that these two are correct?" Wanda asked when the video was over. "After all this is Julian and Jamie. They aren't the most reliable sources of well…anything."

"We're you not paying attention?! Those boys are not lying, or making things up, or exaggerating! I can say with full confidence that they know with absolute certainty that this is NOT A DRILL! The Salesmen have made their move, it's time to act before it's too late!" Logan said as he paced in front of the screen which had Julian's frightened face frozen in the final frame.

Logan pulled out he latest sheaf of charts, the ones that he made in case such an event as 'proof' of a 'planned threat' occurred. As he began to outline his plan (ignoring the groans from some of the other members of his team) the sky grew brighter and brighter and somewhere in Northern Louisiana Bobby was trying to keep his cool while Piotr attempted to pull their car from a ditch on the side of the road while Wade and John watched from their own car.

Meanwhile, in New Orleans, Julian had finally consented to actually getting out of the car and knocking on the door of the LeBeau mansion. When he had first seen the large home he had sped up and driven right by it, despite Jamie telling him it was the right place. He had believed Jamie; the problem was it reminded him too much of Xavier's.

He was convinced it was some sort of trick from Logan that the mansions were similar. It never occurred to him, even though Jamie had mentioned it a few times over the years, as had John, that Gambit and Rogue might live in a mansion! It was just too much after everything else he had been through.

Jamie however had threatened to jump out of the car again if he didn't go back, so after several hours of sitting across the street, staring at the large forbidding building that seemed to promise his continued entrapment, Julian finally was ready to face his fears.

They knocked on the door. Well Jamie knocked on the door while two of his dupes held Julian in place on the front porch with his mouth covered to avoid listening to him scream about it all being a trap again. Jamie had a headache from the three times he started screaming about it overnight. A few minutes later, Rogue opened the door and Jamie drug Julian inside.

"Okay, before you get mad. I couldn't write or call, Julian broke my phone, but Sinister might be arriving anytime now." Jamie said as the door swung shut.

"Hello to you too. Wait what?!" Rogue replied, as she shifted the small girl in her arms to her other hip.

"Julian wouldn't let me send a message to Logan asking for help, so I sent it to Sinister."

"I told you I will never give Logan the satisfaction of thinking he may have been right about anything ever! Never ever again!" Julian said from his hiding place behind the Jamie dupes, who suddenly disappeared. Julian gave out a high pitched squeal and dived behind a coat tree when they were gone.

"What's all this?" Rogue said, as she gestured for them to follow her further into the house. Jamie skipped along happily, while Julian reluctantly trailed behind, jumping from piece of furniture to piece of furniture. He fully expected Logan to jump out at him any moment.

"When we were in Las Vegas, we were being chased by security because Julian's an idiot (HEY)so we hid in a conference room,where we overheard-"

"I'm not an idiot!"

"Whatever- we heard a group of salesmen, actually the largest group of them I've ever seen, anyway we heard them. Rogue, the salesmen are agents of Apocalypse. They are plotting to raise him from his sleep and take over the world."

"Noooooooooo! Stop now Jamie! You're dangerously close to accusing Logan of being right! I can't take it!" said Julian as he hid behind the couch, much to the amusement of the young girl in Rogue's arms, who began laughing which made the couch cushions begin to dance around the room.

"Bekka, sweetheart. Mommy said no playing in the Livingroom. Go find your brother and sister, play with them." Said Rogue patiently.

"So,you're three for three on the whole early powers thing then?" Said Julian who was still hiding behind the couch. "Excellent, they can help scare off the salesmen when they arrive."

"My children will not be helping you to fight anything." Rogue said. Jamie had to fight the urge to go find a tree when hearing her tone of voice; although Julian seemed unaware of the danger he was in. She sounded exactly as she used to long ago over playing pirate with Katie.

"It's four for Four anyway, Julian. And they're babies." Jamie said once he had overcome the urge to run.

"No, there was the little girl, who Rogue was just holding. Then there was the baby boy, who must be napping somewhere. Plus, she's pregnant. I remember."

"Julian, that was three years ago. Katie's 5, Oli's 4, Bekka's 3, and the baby Charlie's 1 ½. When was the last time you slept?" Rogue said, concerned for the young man who seemed to have developed a twitch in his left eyelid.

"Let's see, today is…Friday, so two weeks ago." Julian said. "Who can sleep when the world is about to end anyway? I mean seriously, the one man who maybe knows how to stop this isn't even here and won't know what's happening until it's all over if ever, and you expect me to sleep? No Jamie, we are not calling Logan! He can NOT be right about this, he'll drag me back in!I'm nearly free! Which reminds me, Rogue may I speak to Gambit for a few minutes?"

"If I go get him will you take a nap after? You look terrible." Rogue said. Julian nodded, but glared at Jamie in a silent warning about calling Logan. Rogue shrugged before leaving the room to find her husband.

"Julian, we are going to need help with all of this. You're making me the voice of reason again and it's not a good look for me darn it!" Jamie said once she had left the room. Julian shrugged but continued to hide as he now peeked out of the window toward the front gates. "Are you even listening to me?!"

"Of course I am Jamie. I'm just ignoring your advice. Don't think for a minute that I have forgotten that you kept vital information from me for weeks. As far as I'm concerned you may well be an agent of Logan's sent to undermine my entire mission."

Jamie screamed and threw his hands in the air. "Fine Julian! FINE! I'm done. Good luck with the whole salesmen trying to kill you thing. I'm going to go play with Katie."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

They're Here

Rogue had led Julian through the large rooms, dropping Jamie off in the kitchen with Tante Mattie and the children in the kitchen, until they finally reached the study. Remy was sitting behind the desk, pouring over some paperwork when they came in. His brother, Henri was sitting near the fire reading over what Julian mistook as a chart to begin with. Before Julian could do more than grab the chair (that he intended to throw through the window and escape) Rogue pointedly cleared her throat. Henri realized Julian was there, so he quickly rolled up what Julian could now see was a floor plan and excused himself.

"Please don't break anything in here Julian. This is my father's office and I really do not want to explain to him why I had to replace the window when he gets back from town." Remy said. "Because then we will get into a fight over having strangers in his office, and he'll remind me of all the ways he finds me irresponsible, which will lead to me declaring that he is unreasonable and storm out of the house. It's really just not worth spending another week in a hotel and having to unpack. Again."

Just like that, Julian felt relaxed and at home. Here was someone who understood! Remy would know how Julian should handle Logan because he dealt with overbearing, controlling people too! Julian set down the chair and sat in it, happy to finally relax for the first time in a long time. "I've been looking everywhere for you guys. Atlantic City. Las Vegas. Everywhere they play poker I could find, everywhere in the country. It's been an epic journey of self-discovery. A quest, if you will. To seek advice from the only man who could possibly help me. I've endured weather, hunger, sleeplessness, the hunting of several different groups, being forcibly removed from several establishments, the complaints of an occasionally unwilling travel companion who is totally and completely obsessed with his phone. All so I can ask you to help me with the most important question of my life."

"Calm down, back up, and tell us what's going on?" Remy said. He wanted to keep the younger man from deciding to break anything in here, strictly speaking he wasn't actually supposed to use this office. He needed to calm Julian down and get out before his father realized he was in here doing his father's paperwork for him(again).

"I need your advice. That's why I'm here. Well that, and the salesmen are after me. It turns out they are part of some cult that wants to take over the world. That has nothing to do with the advice though."

"Okay. Start with that, then we'll deal with the cult thing over cookies in the kitchen." Said Remy as he glanced at the clock.

"How did you get Logan okay with you marrying Rogue? I mean because I've been trying to think of a way to not die and marry her for the last three years. Everyone knows that Logan hated you, but somehow you married Rogue, who was at least at that point his favorite, and he was fine with it. Please, just tell me how you did it."

"I let him think it was his idea." Remy said. " He came to me, and told me he thought I should ask her, which I already had and was trying to figure out how to tell him, then he came to me. The truth is Julian, he _**wants**_ you to marry Laura so he doesn't have to worry about her anymore, but he wants you to do it his way. With the big wedding he gets to plan, and he gets to pretend he was in control over. If you want to do it like I did, that's how you do it."

"B-b-but. That makes him right about something! I can't admit he is right about anything ever! It goes against my principles! I swore just a month ago to never ever let him get to me again!"

"Ah yes, I know that one. I swore the same thing, what seven? Twenty? Times. At least. Then my daughter came along and I realized being right isn't everything. My family is."

"So then why did you run away?"

"Because he insulted me and my wife, and hasn't apologized."

Julian was staring blankly at Remy, which he took as an opening to usher the younger man out of the office. They'd entered the kitchen before Julian finally spoke again. "Wait. So you stayed away for three years, without contact from anyone, because Logan didn't say he was sorry?"

"Oh that's nothing. He joined a villain group for nearly a year because he was asked to do chores here. " Henri said.

"Nevermind. Now what's this about salesmen?" Remy said.

"Oh. They've been chasing me and Jamie for most of the month all over the country because we heard their plot to raise Apol-something. What's really important here is the fact that you're basically telling me that you can't help me and this entire trip was a waste of my time, because all you did was do what Logan wanted you to do. Therefore, you are under his control just like everyone else, and now I'm wondering if I am as well, and none of this makes any sense. My entire life is one big lie and IS THAT THE BLACKBIRD?! WHO CONTACTED LOGAN? JAMIE DI YOU BETRAY ME?! I SWEAR ON YOUR MOTHER'S GRAVE IF YOU BETRAYED ME I'M NEVER SPEAKING TO YOU AGAIN, WHEN DID WADE GET HERE? WHY IS JAMIE EATING A CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE?WHERE ARE THOSE KIDS AND WHY IS NO ONE ELSE PANICKING BECAUSE I JUST SAW A POOL SUPPLY SALESMAN ON YOUR LAWN!"

Before anyone could think of a response beyond turning to the windows, where they noted that yes, the Blackbird, a salesman, Wade and John (now joined by Bobby and Piotr), and Mr. Sinister with his assistant trailing behind were all on the lawn, Julian had had run from the room and barricaded himself in Jean-Luc's office. Though he was incorrect about the cookie. Tante Mattie had given Jamie a raisin cookie, not chocolate chip.

Jamie was the first to notice Julian was gone, Rogue gathered up her children and nieces and nephews along with Mercy and took them to the panic room. Henri and Tante Mattie were instructing the staff to call in reinforcements. Remy was standing at the door debating on letting the X-men and his other father in or leaving them on the porch. On one hand, they were here to help with this salesmen threat. On the other hand, Logan still hadn't apologized and Sinister made him crazy. In the end Rogue returned to decide for him by telling him to open the door.

Jamie debated going in search of Julian, but decided it was best to stay in the kitchen at least long enough to explain the situation to the X-men. Remy, meanwhile had finally noticed Julian was missing and went in search of him before Logan had a chance to say anything. Logan had been practicing his apology all the way here, and had in fact made up a whole new chart to demonstrate how he had been mistaken but that Remy and Rogue should forgive him for the greater good. Remy realized, with a sinking in his stomach, that Julian had locked himself in the office and was using his father's private phone line. If his father returned before he got Julian out of there he was going to go with Logan even if Logan hadn't apologized, he'd just figure out what to do after he got away because he was NOT getting grounded again! He was a grown man darn it!


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

The Battle

Julian had spent a lot of time thinking on this trip, though it may not seem like it to some, and he had decided. He knew what his real calling was. He was going to join the FBI. It was really the Agents who interviewed him that gave him the idea. Well, technically it was their misconception that he was an undercover police officer when he first arrived that gave him the idea but still…that was a long and confusing story that involved him claiming he was an undercover police detective to get inside the door.

Now with a semi-plan in place, he made a phone call to the FBI Agent who had given him a card. The same Agent who was under the impression Julian was faking his erratic behavior. Remy was pounding on the office door; the salesmen were gathering rapidly outside. Logan was arguing with Laura over his wallet, and Jean-Luc had just arrived home. It was a mess.

Julian finally consented to opening the door when Remy threatened to blow it up, over his father screaming at him if he did so he would be grounded, and his other father begging him to consider coming home to the lab. The X-men were setting up a defensive perimeter. The children were still safe in the panic room. Sinister and 'Debbie' were standing around trying to stay out of the way, and Logan was glaring at Julian.

"I'm not admitting you were right Logan. I'm not coming back to your school and living under your thumb anymore. I'm shedding the shackles of your dictatorship here and now!" said Julian who, for some reason no one would ever really understand, removed his Xavier's logoed t-shirt and threw it in Logan's direction. When Rogue offered him another shirt, he also refused on principle.

"We don't have time for your latest tantrum right now Julian. The Salesmen are outside, trying to get in. Logan is about to completely lose his mind. If you don't let Remy by he's likely to blow something up because he really needs to get away from his father right now. It's nearly dinner time and if I don't get those kids fed on time we'll have a whole different problem so please just back off and let's take care of this first." Said Rogue. She shoved the offered shirt into his arms, and led him down the hall into the living room while everyone else just stared after her.

"Yeah, you don't want to cross my wife. Anyway, let's take care of this problem."

The following battle with the salesmen was long, insane, violent, and not suitable for younger viewers. Therefore, Wade (who rather enjoyed himself) has removed the content and replaced it with images of dancing kittens. However, the highlights included the arrival of the FBI, fire department, and for reasons only Wade may have understood a car full of clowns. Later, Wade would explain he hired the clowns for comic relief.

As the sun began to set two important things happened. The first was Julian, who was on the roof still refusing to put on a shirt, used a mega phone to scream. "Yeah, that's right salesmen you better run! You never had a chance! Laura, I'm tired of waiting for the right moment, Marry me please! I swear Logan will get on board eventually! Look at those salesmen run. Will someone please call off the clowns now so I can come down?"

The second was Logan finally tracked Remy down in the chaos and rubble of the left wing to say. "Look Remy. I've been trying all day. I even had a chart but someone lost in in the battle, so I got to wing it. I'm sorry I accused to of cheating on your wife. I know you would never disrespect a chart or your wife like that."

"Thank you Logan. I'm glad you see that. No, I never would do such a thing." Said Remy as his father came up to them to tell Remy off for the authorities arriving at their house. "I'm sorry Dad, there is no way I can be grounded for this. I have to get back to work, Logan finally said he was sorry sincerely. Plus, someone's got to get that boy off the roof before he kills himself."

Logan was ignoring Julian, who was now singing a victory march while awaiting the removal of the clowns. Laura, meanwhile had found her way to the roof to talk to him. "Yes Julian, I will marry you. You didn't need to go through all of this to ask me. Now, please come downstairs and put on a shirt."

Julian followed her down and met up with everyone in the kitchen, since the living room was still slightly smoldering. Rogue had retrieved their children from the safe room, and packed their 'He finally apologized' luggage into the trunk of their car. Everyone's minor injuries had been treated, and Jean-Luc and Sinister were both pouting in the corner over being ignored by Remy. In other words, things seemed pretty normal to Julian when they walked in.

"Logan. I have asked your daughter to marry me and she has agreed. I hope that having me in your family is not going to cause strife. In fact, that was the entire reason for this journey, to find a way it wouldn't be, but in the end you're just going to have to accept it or don't because I'm tired. I've spent years living under your crazy rules. I've fallen into line and become a teacher at your school. I even helped you with your salesmen theory which I still don't really believe, so the least you can do is give us your blessing. Don't interrupt me! Now look, I know I'm not your ideal son-in-law. I'm stubborn. I break rules. I spend way to much time listening to Jamie's crazy plans which he never actually explains and often I tune out. He still should have told me where the LeBeaus were weeks ago. Seriously, this whole thing could have been avoided if he hadn't held out on vital information, so I still haven't forgiven him or you for planting him into my trip. It was the most –"

"Julian! I tries to tell you 58 times! You never listen!" Jamie said.

"Jamie! Now I've lost my train of thought." Julian said, as he shook his head to Laura who once more attempted to hand him a shirt.

"Oh, I think it went that way." Said Wade as a distant train whistle sounded across town.

"Wha- never mind." Said Julian.

"You finished?" said Logan. " Okay, good. Well, about time boy. I told Laura at the rate you were going she was going to have to ask you but she insisted on waiting for you to ask because it's 'proper'. I think I taught her to well sometimes. Anyway, let's get going, we need to be home in time to see all the kids off in the morning, and we left all the babies with Ororo."

Everyone nodded and stood to head to their cars or the plane, but Julian froze to his spot. They noticed he wasn't following them after a moment, then he began to scream. "YOU DID IT TO ME AGAIN! I CAN NEVER DO ANYTHING BECAUSE EVERYTIME I TRY TO THINK FOR MYSELF IT TURNS OUT I'M DOING EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANTED ME TO DO! I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE! FREEDOM! THAT'S IT! I CAN'T TAKE THE STRICT MILATARY-LIKE RULE ANYMORE! Laura, you coming? I'M OUT OF HERE LOGAN! I WILL NEVER BE CONTROLLED BY YOU AGAIN!"

Logan, Laura, Jamie, and Remy stared at the boy. Everyone else had gone to their vehicles when he started shouting. Rogue came back in as Julian, who was very annoyed that Laura didn't want to come, stormed out of the back door. "He'll be back. Don't worry. Remy used to do this kind of thing all the time."

Everyone settled into the various cars, Jamie on the plane, and headed for home. Julian would calm down and return when he was ready. After all, he had a wedding to plan now.


End file.
